What ho, shipmates!
Just a short post - I'm still working on the ship and making progress. In the meantime, for the future builder, again, IGNORE anything in the instructions for this kit that tells you not to do the right thing (a/k/a the accurate thing) because it is too hard!
After you set up the shrouds on the fore and main and BEFORE you start rat'ling down - install the sheer poles. The instructions direct thee builder to just glue them in place

. That's not how it was done on a ship. It is easy to lash them to the shrouds as they would have been on a real ship - see and enlarge the pic at post #525. Although you may not be able to replicate the method shown in the picture short of using something thinner than a human hair, you can still get the job done in a workmanlike fashion.
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Remember, I said "workmanlike"

On the advice given to me and others before now by our shipmate
@Peter Gutterman, having noticed that the sheer pole is not level, I declared victory and moved on! VICTORY!
I'll post pics later, but I'm 75% finished with the ratlines - it takes me about 4 hours per mast

and is easily the thing I like least about rigging.
For the future builder - IGNORE the out the instructions give you to omit the ratlines. If there are no ratlines how is the finished product representative of what the ship looked like? I've actually seen a log where the builder omitted the ratlines in accordance with this out. It was a disservice to the effort of the builder
Blessings.
Chuck